Danica Patrick messed up Sunday and ruined a chance at just her second top-10 finish of her rookie Sprint Cup season.

No matter how one looks at it, Patrick has not had a good season. She sits 28th in the series standings. She has only finished better in her second trip to a track at three of the 10 tracks where the series has run twice this year.

She should have shown more progress. Maybe we miss the little things and there will be more tangible signs of progress next year, but it definitely is not easy to see. She does get better during a race weekend, but week-to-week progress appears minimal.

Patrick is learning. She needs to get better. She needs time to get better.

She will get that time. She has a sponsor in GoDaddy, whose CEO told The Associated Press last week that “She's going to be with us for an awful, awful long time.”

The question isn’t just how much time, but how much better does she need to get for her to gain the respect of the NASCAR fan base. What will it take to have more fans believe she deserves to have one of the 43 seats every weekend?

It’s not rare that a rookie will not be great right out of the box.

Of the 13 drivers in the Chase this year, four finished in the top 10 their rookie seasons, 11 in the top 20. The only one outside the top 20 was Kurt Busch (27th), who failed to qualify for a race at Atlanta. Kevin Harvick, in his second season, was 21st while missing one race.

Patrick did make history this year as the first pole winner for a Cup race ever. She also posted the best finish ever for a female in the Daytona 500.

But the fact is that Stewart-Haas Racing is not a place for a 28th-place driver.

As long as she has sponsorship, she’ll have a ride. So if she runs as well as, say, Paul Menard, is that OK?

Menard is family-funded and he is 16th in the standings. For the last three years, he’s been top 17 in the standings. For his first four years, he was no better than 23rd.

He is not considered the elite of the elite, but isn’t a top-20 finish on an annual basis good enough to keep a ride?

It should be. Not every driver is Jimmie Johnson or Kyle Busch or even Greg Biffle. If her funding allows people to have jobs building and working on race cars, does it really hurt the sport all that much?

She can’t run 28th every year, but no one should expect her to be even where Ryan Newman is right away. Newman has five wins with two top-10 points finishes and an average points standing of 13.4 over the last eight years (including his current spot of 11th this year).

Yes, she made a mistake on pit road Sunday, but many drivers make mistakes on pit road. Kyle Busch made one on Sunday, too.

If Juan Pablo Montoya, Sam Hornish Jr. and Dario Franchitti prove anything, it’s that the transition from IndyCar to NASCAR is extremely difficult. Patrick needs to be given more time.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Danica’s boyfriend, won back-to-back Nationwide crowns and won eight Nationwide races in 2011 and 2012. He’s 19th in the Cup standings with just three top 10s this year.

So it’s not surprising someone less accomplished in stock cars isn’t running even close in a rookie season.

If Patrick is still 28th two years from now, then GoDaddy and SHR should consider whether she’s still worth the investment.

But there’s nothing wrong with allowing her to learn on the Cup level. It’s not as if SHR has the door being knocked down with drivers with full-time sponsorship who can finish in the top 25 in Cup.

All sports teams are limited by a salary cap where they have role players and fill-ins. Not everyone is a star.

Patrick gets the star-like treatment because of her popularity. That won’t change. What needs to change is the result each week. It doesn’t need to change to that of champion, just a driver who can run more consistently in the top 20 than getting lapped in the first half of the race.